Smoke
by drizzlydaze
Summary: The world's gone to peace. The ghostly, not-so-dynamic duo of Spike and Lilah team up to save it. Spuffy. (Post-Chosen, Post AtS S4, kind of an AtS S5 AU)
1. Ghost

Part One: Ghost

Jagged shapes in the darkness teetered precarious atop one another, piled in high, swaying columns. The cold, stale air was thick with the scent of old. A layer of dust had settled over the entire shop as surely as silence, even over the little bell by the door. There was no shopkeeper and never any customers. If one were to venture into the backroom, there would be a faded Persian carpet below the worktable, and a trapdoor below that. It opened to a set of rickety, steep stairs that led down into a musty cellar.

And in the cellar, hiding in the dark, was the last. She tried to remember that to venture outside would be suicide. She was the last, she was the last, and she was, and always had been, a survivor.

Across the city, the abandoned offices of Wolfram and Hart stood defeated. There was a woman looking out from the window of the CEO office. She stepped back, approached the desk, and took up an envelope. Then she slit it open and let the heavy object inside slide to the floor.

"We are," she began, not even blinking when the whirlwind of magic and debris swirled up from the amulet, "the only ones who can save this sorry world." She chuckled derisively. "Of course, I hope to end it soon after, but for now we unite."

Predictably, he lunged at her. Well, through her. And then he blinked. "Bollocks."

"Yes." She nodded at him. "You're a ghost. So am I, for that matter, just with a gift from my superiors—a little corporeality." She held up a hand. "Listen. I don't like repeating myself. You sacrificed yourself in the Hellmouth, but your essence was stored in this amulet. While you were gone, the world—and this includes your Slayer—has been taken over by an entity that your grandsire failed to stop. And here we are, at the end—_after_ the end of the world."

He blinked. "And Buffy?"

"As I said. The world's ended. She's gone where it has."

He chose to discard this piece of information, asking instead, "And who the bloody hell are you?"

"Lilah Morgan. Requesting your services. I work for Wolfram and Hart."

"Real trustworthy, you lot are."

"Our goals are aligned, so yes."

"And what are they, exactly?"

Her lips curved up in something just short of a smile. "I want to save the world."

Everything floated. Colours and shapes swayed and shifted, and nothing held in her mind. Too quick to think on. Too hazy to think.

If she had more awareness, she would register that they were dreams. But then, if she had more awareness, she would not be asleep.

The outside world sometimes manifested itself in her dreams. A boy's voice, quiet and dark; a woman's rich timbre; low, unfamiliar murmurs of a crowd. These moments were lost in the dream, insignificant, and she was far from waking.

There were visions of startling clarity. They lifted the fog of her slumbering mind, however temporarily, and imbued her with a sense of urgency. But they were never strong enough to startle her into waking, and as time went on, they grew less insistent and struck less often.

Spike was used to weird things. He'd long learned to go with the flow, but he always did things his way.

"The world has ended," she repeated.

"Seems to me it's right where it's always been."

As of late, _his way _was becoming shackled with the _good guy way_, due to the whole soul thing which really was quite a big deal, thank you very much. And saving the world was a rather big feature in the _good guy way_. (He had, of course, saved the world soulless, but apparently that wasn't such a big deal.)

"This entity is a fallen Power calling itself Jasmine, also known as the Devourer. The world is overridden with adoration for her. Mind control," she said finally, "and your Slayer is under it too."

Lilah Morgan had filled him in on the current weirdness of the world, and it was rather more sobering than he'd have wished. Just his luck, waking up to another apocalypse. A happy Stepford-type apocalypse of joy and amity, but an apocalypse nonetheless.

"And it's just us two?"

"As far as I know, yes. The Senior Partners are helpless with no players left on the board—except, of course, you and me."

Spike was rather new to the _good guy way_, but he assumed it had a clause somewhere that precluded working against world peace. It was world peace between populations of mindless automatons, sure, but still world peace. But on the whole, even with the soul, he was fairly opposed to the notion of shells walking around the world pretending to be human, even if this dystopia was rather less dystopian than any novel had imagined, and, well, succeeding where precious Angel had failed was attractive. But still. "World peace, I imagine, works better without being smashed into pieces. Which is what I do."

"Did I mention that she eats people to maintain her energy?"

Spike considered this, licking his own canines. "Well. That _is_ pretty evil." He nodded, committing himself to the hero role, now that it was established that this Jasmine was, in fact, an evil people-eater.

"Happy? Let's get going."

He snorted. "Don't see how we're much of a threat. Two ghosts versus everyone else, and the everyone else aren't exactly keen to be saved." He looked out at the city. "Gotta be more Caspers out there. Couldn't have got them all."

"She had the whole world working with her for that, not to mention the Slayers."

And the matter of Buffy… that was… He couldn't quite think on it. Not yet. _I love you. _"What's she doin' with them?" he asked quickly.

"Oh, she's done with them. Used them to eliminate those that her mind control couldn't get. Soulless demons, mostly, but those were easy. Anything soulless, really, plus ghosts. Now Slayers roam around like any other sheep." To his unspoken question, she continued, "My file and contract were hidden once the Partners realised what was happening. Only got to me in time."

When he looked out of the window, the world looked like it always had been. There were ants and cars racing about in their mindless little routines. Same cogs, different machine. The world went on turning.

"One important little fact: we can cure them by exposing them to her blood."

"Always gotta be blood," he muttered. "So what's the plan?" A bit of a silence. "I'm assuming the all-powerful Senior Partners had a brilliant master plan in case of Angel's inevitable failure."

"Well. A lot of things went off track," she said, "not just Angel. As of now, the Partners' plan has ended. With you. An ally."

He looked at her incredulously, unsure if she were telling the truth. As the odds stood, her being evil and all, she wasn't. "_Me_? That's the plan?"

"That _was _the plan. Obviously, we need another one to follow through." Lilah raised her eyebrows at his look. "What? Souled vampire, Champion, Shanshu. You're a handy Angel replacement."

It was not, she knew, a good or particularly clever thing to say. This vampire had a significantly quicker temper than the original. He had her by the throat in a second.

"I'm no one's bloody replacement, least of all that toothless puppy!" he snarled.

"Well, well. Someone's touchy." It was rather hard to sound aloof while being choked.

His hand sunk through the moment he realised what he was doing, and Lilah gingerly rubbed her throat. He stared at his now incorporeal hand. "I touched you." He looked up, eyes wide. "I touched something."

"I know. Hence the pun." She adjusted her scarf. "Reality," she continued, unfazed, "bends to desire. So long as you want something enough, you can touch it."

He narrowed his eyes. "Any other nice tidbits you're keeping from me?"

"I'm not keeping anything from you. It's just that the months taken to retrieve you have led to an awful lot of exposition to go through." She tapped her finger against the desk, commanding his attention as he tried to pick up a mug. "One last fact: you're not exactly a ghost. You are essence, brought back, and if you truly become corporeal again…"

"I get cleaned between my bloody ears," he finished. He closed his eyes, recalling the burn of his soul as the Hellmouth collapsed around him. How many times would the world need saving? Wasn't much good to begin with. Wasn't worth much in the first place.

He looked closely at Ms Corporate. "So. What's in it for you?"

"It's work," she said offhandedly, and gave away no tells.

"And I'm sure that's half true," he said to narrowed eyes. She had people she wanted to save too. Family, at least. He would have to find out more about that; her other connections, those were what he would bank on for loyalty. Not her bloody job, which was probably the least trustworthy reason to work with her. All sorts of double crosses, _especially _with lawyers.

Like him, she had her humanity. "Manchester United," he said aloud. Lilah raised an eyebrow; on her face it was incredulity. "Dog racing. Punk rock. Hot wings. Happy Meals—off limits now, but still entertainin'. Passions. Blooming onions. Poetry. Blood. Love." A smile crept up on his face. "Alright, I'm ready."

She had to stay in the cellar. It was too dangerous outside, up there, anywhere, even if no one went into the shop. But there was no more food to eat, and the sewers were even more dangerous than the secluded store, so she, feeling fatalistic, crept out.

She found some food and water in the cabinets of the backroom. It was by no means a permanent solution, but it would do for now. Eventually, she would have to risk going out in the open, or at least risk filching food from the trash. She went to fiddle around in the shop, getting her bearings, daring someone to wander in and see her, and then _she _would see her…

Curiosity shops were something of a curiosity to her. She'd once enjoyed unhurried explorations of the catalogue, the little objects that she'd never buy (she was far too practical for that) but indulged in sight only. The shopkeeper wouldn't disturb her trawling.

And this shop, well… its collection of items was more expansive than any other she'd seen, although the shop itself was of an average size—these objects were piled up, cluttered and messy, like the treasure trove of some dragon. (Dragons, she thought, were bound to be disorganised.) There were endless possibilities to explore. She took up a few bric-a-bracs in each hand, feeling their cool shape against her palms, the faintly moist layer of dust.

Her mind, already so unravelled and unravelling with each solitary day, chose this moment to remind her that survivors were not defeatist. Urgency overtook wonder (she could still wonder!); common sense overruled fancy. She darted to the backroom and into the hole in the floor, flung the carpet back over and closed the trapdoor (it opened to the inside).

The curios she had been holding were still with her. The food and water were safely stowed in her bag. She was still alive. The excursion was a success.

"I should write that down," she said. "I should write it down." So she took up her trusty black marker and wrote on the plaster wall, squishing the words between an equation and the doodle of a fire.

"The answers," she said to her handiwork, "to the universe."

How do you defeat an undefeatable foe? Team up with something _bigger_.

That was the plan, anyway. Finding that bigger something was a bit harder. Releasing it was a different story entirely. Their best ally was the resources of W&H. A plane or helicopter would raise too much suspicion; a magic byway, courtesy of the Partners, would not.

"Drogyn? Can't say I know him."

"Medieval-type guardian with little hygiene and a peculiar curse," Lilah said, shrugging. "The usual. Jasmine's checked out Drogyn and the Deeper Well, but the Senior Partners know secrets even the guardian does not."

"Like what?"

"Like theft. It's out of LA," she said. "Think you can handle yourself?"

He put up his hand, wiggling his fingers. "Can't exactly do much damage with these."

She looked sceptical. "Just don't be brash. Stay here, stay low."

He didn't like being ordered around. "And why exactly couldn't you do this before? Seems you don't need me."

"I don't have time for pettiness," she snapped. "Just stay—"

"—Hold on a tick," he said, a smirk tugging at his lips. "Your precious Senior Partners were the ones that wanted me, weren't they? And you had to go with their commands before doing your own thing. So much for the whole independent woman thing you've got goin' on. Still a pup to your master's whims."

To his chagrin, she laughed. "Don't try play mastermind in Wolfram and Hart, Pratt." And she left. Spike had the nasty suspicion that his past—his human past—was typed up somewhere in a big fat folder for her perusal. _More like a certainty_, he thought. He'd been far too naïve about this gig. Senior Partners and PTB were using him like Captain Forehead, their own little vampy pawn for the great game, only he'd never reach the end of the board and get promoted to—a queen? He gave himself a mental scoff. A real boy, more like. Echoes of Pygmalion, maybe—but he hadn't been _made_, much as the PTB would like to think. In any case, he'd heard about that Shanshu bugaboo, and he didn't really fancy it anyway. The whole yearning for things he could never have, dog on a leash—that was Angel's gig. Or, uh, in Spike's own not-so-distant past, but _past _nonetheless.

Files and Records was rows upon rows of cabinets. Slumped over the front desk was a brown-haired woman with no pulse and electricity sparking from her broken flesh.

_This is important_, he thought, closing his eyes to concentrate. _I'm getting the file. I'm getting the file. Any file I want, I get. I take what I want._

He remembered Lilah Morgan and that humanity he hoped to find, but she had said her file was hidden. No need to bother for hers, then.

First the 'S's, then 'B's, then 'W's, and finally he gave in to the 'P's. His folder was thicker than he expected, a large black binder with _Pratt, William (Spike) _over the top. He left it on the front desk before browsing the 'S's again; _Summers, Buffy _was easily twice as thick as his, though he'd lived seven times as long. The last entry was of her training the Slayers post-Sunnydale, and nothing after Jasmine. He flipped to the front and tore out the first page, the one with her picture, and pocketed it. Then he checked out Jasmine (and Devourer), but she had already taken the file out.

Exhausted by the effort of handling so many objects, he slumped down on the reception desk (he wasn't sure why he could sit and lie down, could stand on the floor but walk through walls, but he was no physicist) and massaged the weariness from his eyes. After a few moments, he began bouncing his leg, then pacing around the room.

Sit tight. Not his forte. But even he could recognise the dangers of going outside. A cracked screen glowed dimly with Jasmine's face. She didn't look as he had expected, nutty skin and rounded, but somehow this actuality fit it perfectly. Still. Hardly a face to fall over about.

But he wasn't really looking at her. He was wondering, in some underside of his mind, that perhaps someone else would turn up on screen. Perhaps ghost girl was wrong. Perhaps Jasmine did take higher ups, or maybe she just needed security (in this ghost town?). Maybe he'd see her.

He wasn't really looking. He was imagining.

She might not even be in LA. Or if she were… His mind inevitably drifted to Angel, and this world of synthetic happiness, sickly sweet Happily Ever Afters. Something rose in his gut, and he snapped his gaze from the screen. If she… If the Slayer… If _Buffy_...

The only thing he knew was that she was trapped in this Jasmine-d world. He wondered how it worked. He hadn't exactly had time to observe the people sheep populating the city, but the way Lilah had phrased it… _Overridden with adoration._ Shiny happy people; he suddenly thought of the very plastic Buffybot, and the wedding spell.

Unless this took the more suicidal route, like that boy's bespelled jacket in the last year of SunnyD. "And if she got her hands on another rocket launcher…" he trailed off. (No, couldn't be that way. Too much chaos if the love were destructive. ….Too much _destruction_ if the love were destructive, burning the world away.)

He got up violently. Would've flung the chair to the wall with the force of his movement if he were corporeal. "And the point?" he shouted to the ceiling. "Bringing me back like this! Leavin' me here, stuck here!" Saving the world, fine. That was action, explosions, light—

_A warmth through him, the warmth of sunlight he could finally touch, and a warmth of… of his—_

But now he had too much time. And whenever he had too much time, he either watched bad soaps or, dangerously, began to think. And think. And overthink.

There were no soaps now.

So he could remember everything. Overanalyse everything that was already past, already buried. Forgotten, most likely, all but his last shining moment playing the hero.

_Sunlight hurt. He'd almost forgotten. His gaze blinded by its brilliance, light filling his eyes and crashes in his ears…_

_And _pain_ as it tore him apart. Bones crushing into the ash he was, flesh burning black, something inside him being stretched and ripped beyond imagining. And the worst part was, something told him that that was his soul. That was its weight. Its destruction. (And just for a second, a blinding out-of-his-mind excruciating second, he wished it weren't there to burn.)_

Yeah. Real pretty, that was. He tried to control his shaking body, standing stiff and muscles taut. Very deliberately looked away from the amulet sitting innocently on the floor. He felt, in that moment, the rawness of his flesh and heat burning his body, memories stirring to life.

It was a bit silly, really. His soul had been his destruction, fodder for the fire, and would be again should he become corporeal with Jasmine undefeated. It alone rendered him (and Angel, he supposed, and god did he wish he hadn't thought of Angel) susceptible to her mind control, and it alone, originally meant for the service of good, would prevent him from doing good.

He was about as useful as a nothing. His not-technically-ghostliness found him in the same bind as his soul—it protected him from Jasmine, but made him… effectively impotent. The more he thought about it, the more he thought being the Dearly Departed was the worst state he could be condemned to. No, it wasn't time that made him run his thoughts in circles; it was his completely inability to take to _action_. Couldn't even be useful to a fellow ghost.

So he decided to go out. Stretch his legs a bit. After all, didn't seem like he was all that needed.

He wasn't a complete idiot, though, and kept to the more empty streets. Made sure no one came within an arm's length of him, so there wouldn't be an accidental touches (or lack thereof), and tried to keep his expression the same as every dullard that passed him by.

"Don't you just love Jasmine's look?" a passer-by suddenly said.

He swallowed down 'Uh's and said, "Yeah, no question." She was still looking at him expectantly, so he continued, with a show of confidence, "Glowing skin and… deep, soulful eyes. Pools of burnt caramel, dark delight. The inside glow of a hearthstone in dead winter, crackling coruscation. Like she _knows_ you. " Who knew William could come in useful?

"Exactly! Exactly!" The girl gave him a blinding smile and continued on her way.

The streets were unnaturally clean. Sterile, even—just like the people. Everyone beamed so brightly as to rival his final bonfire-y hurrah. It really was a town full of bots, but without the fun parts.

He turned a corner and saw Angel.

Let out a strangled shout. Fell backwards through a wall in his haste to escape, which would have worked rather well in getting out of sight had a couple not been on the other side. They got up at the same time, pinning him with laser stares.

"H-hail Jasmine!" He did a sketchy Nazi salute. The words and gesture were, laughably, almost automatic. "She's great, isn't she? Voice like a babbling brook, the tinkle of wind chimes in an autumn breeze. Can't get enough of it!"

Faced with their stony looks, he could see that it wasn't working.

Then the little boy started shouting, "Ghost! Ghost!" and the others joined in in a cacophony of hair-raising shrieks. He was rooted to the spot in one moment of dread and fear—there was nothing quite so eerie as this scene of ordinary humans slowly advancing to him with those _looks_ and _voices_. Then he scrambled back through the wall, running off at full tilt.

He heard Angel call after him in surprise. For a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of the thought that Angel might have his back, that he had been pretending this whole time. But the moment passed, and the dread swept over him even as he sprinted to God-knew-where.

Because he was being followed by those wide, wild eyes; dozens of unerring pairs of pinpoint precise attentions. He could sense the change in the air, of being hunted, tracked, and recognised. And those stares, so thick he could feel them, were as constant as the soundtrack in his ears, the organised chant, slightly lilting, a little like a wailing siren, that drew out, "Ghost! Ghost! Ghost!"

So he ran. He didn't think he could stop.

The shouts from outside shook her. She was curled up into a ball, heart punching through her chest, blood pumping in her ears. Secondary was the sheer level of noise. She was struck to the core, foremost, by the cadence and rhythm of their words; an ordered screech that hit her on the most primal of levels, and it was only a few fear-filled eternities later that she registered the words.

Through her ice-fright, she giggled. The mundane meanings slid off of her like sleet from a slant roof. Instead she found humour in the idea that they were calling out their own true names in that murderous heat. The thought that the truth was on their tongues and ringing in the air, but they could not understand because of its and their very natures.

_We are ghosts to ghosts_, she thought. _I think I am._

The bell tinkled again and again, and the sound of heavy feet stomped over her head. A wordless shout cut through the 'Ghost!' wailing, the messy noise of a scrabble, a struggle, then the door opened and shut with finality.

She returned to the waiting, and something else happened.

The bell didn't sound, but the some of the higher objects cluttered about the room above clattered to the floor. A heavy, female-sounding sigh, tinged with impatience. The clack of heels on wood, the sound of sweeping dust.

A ghost of fear stole over her. _Keep silent._ Silent as a mouse.

They had some kind of magic proddy rod thing that could hook onto him and drag him along. Humiliating, really, so he more often strutted along like he'd wanted to be caught. _You had _one_ job_, he thought, feeling like this champion thing was a lot harder than he'd thought. Didn't always win just 'coz you were a good guy—unless he was just dragging the team seemed more and more likely with each agonising minute.

"I saw you in the street," Jasmine said. _Yeah, saw with a thousand manic eyes. _"You seemed... disorientated." Her voice was mellow, pleasant like waves. He could see the appeal; the actual magic, of course, didn't work on him.

Still, he dropped to his knees. "Who _are_ you?" Tried not to think too much on it.

She smiled, benevolently. "Jasmine. I see you've been lost for quite some time now." The light, sweet scent of jasmine wafted around her.

He opened his mouth but no words came out for good few seconds. Then: "I… yeah. I dunno what happened, just popped out of an amulet all of a sudden. And I can't touch anything. I'm not… It's off, I never knew vamps could go ghost. Nothing in us to stay on, you know, not even with my…"

"You are not," Jasmine said. The people around her sighed in adoration. "You are not a ghost, but floating essence. Different. I can see that now. You are welcome here, of course. All who wish, are."

"I can't imagine anyone who would deny," he said. "But… you don't know who I am. What I am."

And it was all going very well—he'd been a bit worried that there might be some mind reading mumbo jumbo slash emotional sensor things—until another voice spoke up from the stairs, and he couldn't act anymore.

"Spike."

It was her. Now it was true awe that showed on his face, what he looked like when possessed with genuine emotions. But he didn't care, didn't think, only gaped and drank Buffy in. Not at all like the Buffybot, not plastic or magicked up, not anything but raw and open just like he, and absolutely blinding. He rose to face her, hand floating up to meet hers. He didn't even have to think to touch her. Their hands clasped, cool.

He breathed out sharply. He might have closed his eyes to savour the sensation of her touch, but he couldn't bear to tear himself from the sight of her. She, in turn, was looking at him with an undefinable mix of emotions across her face.

Then her hand passed through his and he was a not-ghost again. "You're not real," she said with a thick but steady voice. She moved her hand through his again, and he imagined he could feel tingles passing through his phantom limb. "You burned. You died."

"Haven't we all?" He quirked up his lips slightly.

She raised her hand to trace the ghostly outline of his face.

"He's real," Jasmine said. He felt bereft when Buffy turned to look at her. "Let me excuse myself, Buffy, Spike. I'm sure you have a lot to catch up on. Love is… so beautiful." Smile.

Twenty minutes ago, a coffin dropped upon heaps of treasures. It disturbed said treasures and they sloped, crashing, along the sides until a plateau had formed on the top for the coffin to topple onto in an almost acceptable balance. There was no body in the coffin, nor lining, nor ashes of any ordinary kind. There was only cold stone thrumming with something not quite magic, shaped finely into a vessel made for lasting.

This coffin was, though _not_ for all intents and purposes, empty. So perhaps it was instead a vessel made for _waiting_, shut but gaping.

Love. That was the parting blessing Jasmine had left in her wake. Buffy had never felt so connected or loved before Jasmine, a swell of feelings that seemed impossible to fill her even more—but Spike was here now. She couldn't speak.

So he did. "I dunno why I'm here. Why I'm all see through." Oh, so he thought he could be all Gruff Guy? "I did burn. Just didn't take."

She'd play along for now, if that pinhead wanted to play it cool. "How long?"

"Few hours, maybe. Then the… witch hunt started."

"It wasn't a witch hunt!" she protested, remembering that chase clearly through the eyes of the whole. The ghost of her memories. It was the only time she'd ever… But of course, Jasmine heard her pleas for what they were. "You know, you did and do seem kinda… ghost-y."

He was looking at her shrewdly now, with those jewel blue eyes picking her apart like jigsaw. "But y'know I'm not…"

"Well, duh! Jasmine said so."

"Jasmine said so. Right," he said sulkily, for whatever reason.

She was vaguely annoyed with his uncooperativeness and more sharply unsettled by his tone, but it wasn't like she needed to wait. She'd always made the first move. Million dollar question being what this _move_ was supposed to be, and as a bonus, why she always had to make it. As when she was caught in a dilemma, she thought of Jasmine.

Love. Just grab him now and never let go. But then—peace. And the strange thing was, when she thought of peace, she remembered the last year in Sunnydale and… and the last time she saw him. "You weren't… in heaven or anything, right?" She couldn't help it.

He laughed.

The jerk. "Just thought I'd ask! Safety helmet on, because better safe than that other thing," she said crossly. "And it's not like you've been…"

He narrowed his eyes. "Been what?"

She felt the peace dangerously destabilised and words battered the dam dangerously. "Nothing." She turned away.

He walked right up to her. She could see his big, clunky boots (how considerate the Powers were, bringing his trademark ensemble back as phantom as he) and his entire frame casting no shadow. He was kind of a ghost, if a ghost was a dead formerly-living non-corporeal being, which, in laymen's terms, it was. Less human than he had ever been. He could walk in light now, but still no reflection and now no shadow.

But she could feel heat from him.

"Why can't I touch you?" She held up her hand, palm forward.

He put his forth too. "Burned out, I s'pose. Pretty inconsistent, this."

Maybe from afar it looked like their hands met. But there was only air. _No._ "I can feel you." Air and heat. "And that's—" She broke off mid-sentence, turning automatically to the door. The scent of jasmine floated through the air.

And in her voice of honey and amber: "Hello." A bone-melting smile. "I hate to intrude…"

"Not at all!" Buffy said quickly, glancing briefly at Spike. He was transfixed by Jasmine too, though his jaw was unnaturally tight. "We were pretty much finito here. End curtains and all." From the corner of her eye, she saw something cross Spike's face. It wasn't all that harmonising, honestly, and she wished he'd just start showing the happiness he must feel with everyone else.

Jasmine smiled in relief. "Well, I'm glad you had time to catch up. You two have a lot of lost time to make up for."

Buffy nodded, wondering how Jasmine understood everything so well. "So what's up? I get the feeling there's something big a-brewing."

"Yes," Jasmine said. "We can begin bringing Spike back to the physical realm."

Her eyes were full of delight when she turned to Spike again, but he was looking away with wide eyes.

Lilah Morgan was not happy. She had happened to be paired with the greatest, rashest, most impetuous dunce in the history of all heroes (which was saying a lot, given the thick heads they generally possessed), who had rather predictably tripped over his own shoelaces, entangling himself in a plot she would have to remedy.

She would prefer to screw him, not in the literal sense though she wasn't entirely opposed to the idea, and move on with her own plan, but he had inadvertently moved himself to a position that would either prove useful or, more likely, dangerous. Both required overseeing. And rescuing, because apparently she did that now.

(Evil had standards, she knew. But she considered intelligence—and, while not too relevant in her current form, self-preservation—to be of higher importance.)

No doubt Spike was secretly loving the idea of being corporeal again. Izzerial knew if he even remembered that once a souled vampire, he would fall under Jasmine's influence as well. Or if he cared. Buffy was too dangerous a piece, even as a sheep.

There was too much danger already.

Well, she _was_ saving the world, if not in the loophole-ridden way the Partners planned. Still, she scoffed at the notion of being _good_. Or turning so—and shuddered as the thought of Lindsey passed through her mind, the moron. No, this was self-serving, which was about as low and as smart as you could get.

So Lilah moved around the shop, plucking trinkets from various shelves with a dusty book in one hand. She was no witch, but potion magic was elementary so long as you followed the steps. Which she, unlike _certain _people, could do. She, as were all extremely capable people, was proficient in the art on keeping an eye on more things than she had eyes. In this case, it was one eye on the spell book, one on the door of the shop, one on the shelves she used, and one on the seeing orb levitating beside her.

Once all the items were gathered, Lilah set the ingredients and book down on a space between two high shelves that would suffice. She checked the seeing orb for timing, and awkwardly chanted out the Latin from the book. Herbs, candles, sand were laid down and waved around as was necessarily. And of course, the Orb, much different from the simple seeing orb, was set in front of her.

Below her, the not-so-last was done with being quiet like a mouse and instead scrambled up the stairs and into the backroom. The noise she made was quite substantial, and Lilah noticed. And she knew that she had been noticed.

As their eyes met, one pair fierce and the other mildly exasperated, the ritual had just been completed. A couple dozen blocks from the shop, another ritual, seen bulbously in the seeing orb, had also just finished with a bang. A look of wonder and horror tracked across Spike's face as Jasmine intoned the last mellifluous word, and then something inscrutable as the Orb of Thesulah opposite Lilah glowed brightly with his stolen soul.


	2. Soul

Title: Smoke (2/3)

Author: drizzlydaze

Setting: AU AtS S5

Rating: PG

Summary: The world's gone to peace. The ghostly, not-so-dynamic duo of Spike and Lilah team up to save it.

Part 2: Soul

Something stuffed in and something stolen, his mind light, his body steel. Weight lifted, weight granted, horror and ecstasy rushing up like bile. A ripping pain in his abdomen that had him crying out and falling to the ground, a dim glimpse of Buffy running to catch him.

He was falling with daggers of air cutting past him, falling in a vision of light and flame—fallen with the softness of silk rippling around him, lightness. More than the lightness of air, it was the lightness of a thin-spun glass jar, hollow and empty. Salvation.

Halfway between a barked laugh and a choked plea, he said, "Buffy."

She had him in her arms. Her eyes roved worriedly over his figure. "Are you hurt? Does it still hurt? You don't look hurt."

Confused and overwhelmed with the feel of her, he took a moment to answer. "Everything in working order." _But—but not everything there. Oh god. Bloody hell. _He gathered his strength and propped himself up. Amidst the confusion, from the lightness grew levity. He smiled.

And she said, stunned, "You're back."

"Seems so," he said, and though he did not question the veracity of the statement, he wondered in what way it was true. There were too many thoughts even now, and so many emotions. He roiled. But she was in front of him, and he could touch her. So he cupped her face.

She leaned in and he closed the rest of the distance with a sharp motion, kissing her furiously. Something in him recoiled violently at his fierceness, his desperation, but the rest of him was too focused on the fact that she was kissing him back. When at last they pulled apart, Buffy's pounding heartbeat loud in his ears, he felt his brazenness settle on him as fittingly as the soft, worn leather of his duster.

But Buffy had that familiar look of conflict about her, joy and relief and excitement and uncertainty and distress pictured in her eyes. And he wondered if he did not look the same.

Was this a prize? A gift? A blessing? Or his trophy, reward, whatever it had been… retracted? He was, if anything, bereft, which is another word for free. He didn't have the adoration stuffed into him—though he was hollow, there was nothing to hold the adulation in. So he was invulnerable. But he was left in this caged world with less patience and less care, a lot more amenable to helping Lilah, and a lot less adverse to the call of blood.

He was a gambler, whatever his self-esteem, so he said, "I love you."

He brought her down for another fervent kiss, feeling both brave and gutless with the action. She returned it eagerly, but somehow it also felt like she'd only ceded to it. That made for a churning, unpleasant familiarity, and a little thought that suggested he was only being self-absorbed.

When she pulled back, the familiarity was overwhelming and unwelcome. But Jasmine spoke, in a ringing voice, before Buffy could even open her mouth to respond.

"Wait."

Buffy did. Spike felt even more lost, more a ghost than before.

"There's something wrong," Jasmine said, "and it angers and saddens me to see it, more to say it."

Buffy turned to look at her, and, reluctantly, so did Spike. "Yeah?" he said.

She was looking at Buffy. "I'm sorry, Buffy. But Spike… Well, he's lost his soul."

He couldn't read Buffy's expression when she looked back at him. He tried to push down the emotions bubbling up in his gut. _Mind control. Infected. She's not herself. She's not herself. She's not…_

"Lost… his soul…" Now he could see the soulless Spike reel running across her mind. Fighting her, taunting her, stalking her, chasing her, almost r—

He couldn't stop himself. "Don't look at me like that—please don't look at me like that, Buffy, luv—" His heart turned over. '_You know me_'got stuck in his throat halfway up because she did know him, his best and his _worst_. But he forced it out anyway, "You _know_ me." Because she did know and it was her choice. He reached out to her. "Buffy—"

She scooted just out of reach. His heart turned over. It must've been written over his face, because something else came over hers. "How did this happen?" Buffy said.

Jasmine answered, "Someone on the outside has taken his soul. Someone evil wanted him soulless, away from you and me and us."

Buffy whipped her head around to Jasmine once more. "Let's restore it! We can save him."

"Buffy, he's soulless now," she said gently. "You know what he is, and what we must do. Remember Fred? I tried to save her, and we all know what happened. Whatever evil it is that took his soul, it will not hesitate to do so again. We must do the merciful thing. The good thing." Jasmine approached Buffy with overwhelming sympathy in her eyes. "I know it's hard. That's why you won't have to do it."

He wished Buffy would turn back so he could read her expression. He reached out to her shoulder and hesitated, hovering and shaking. Then he brushed her shoulder, moved down her arm. "It's mine. The soul is mine. I need it." Something in him cried out, remembering the anguish of it, and he hastened to add, "But you've known me before." A dangerous game. "You know I would never…"

"Even without the chip?" She still wouldn't look at him.

"I would never hurt you."

"But you did." Her voice was soft like rain, on the edges of his vampiric hearing. But he heard. And he had nothing to say to that; even if he did, he was choked with guilt and revulsion. "And even so," she continued, louder, "you'd hurt others. You don't care about other people. About anyone." He could do nothing but listen, unable to voice excuses or reason, dread overcoming him. "You don't understand Jasmine! The world we've built is a good world. No fighting, no more fighting ever. And you can't understand that." She paused, as though gathering strength to sink the knife deeper into him. "You can't love."

His spiel was on the forefront of his thoughts, on the tip of his tongue, but he still stayed dumb in his numbness. There was a long silence. Then he said, "Please look at me." When she didn't move, he said again, more loudly, "Buffy, look at me. Please."

Jasmine was still standing there, watching, but showed no signs of intervention.

Buffy's head turned infinitesimally towards him, just a sliver of her cheek visible behind her hair. It was more of a sign that she was listening than of any acquiescence.

His mouth felt dry. He didn't know what to say. "Someone stole my soul. The soul I'd _fought_ for while still soulless. The soul I'll fight for again… for you. Always for you."

She turned to him. Her eyes were blurred grey-green like clouds of seaweed ocean, tangled, undulating. He could see the wonder. He could also see the sadness, disapproval, anger, the murkiness.

"But do you know peace?" Jasmine said.

Without the soul, he bloody well did. But he couldn't say that, couldn't speak of the blessed silence his new state left him in.

"Do you know love? Do you know care?" she continued. "You know the taste of fear against your fangs. You know that rush of life from their blood on your lips. You know chaos and _glee_, disregard and destruction. You know hate. But most of all, liar, deceiver, _we _know you are not Spike."

"What the hell are you talkin' about?" he said, completely nonplussed.

Buffy apparently wasn't. She moved back again with something quite different in her face. "You're not Spike," she repeated.

He didn't like the sound of that, less so her new expression. It was that darkening, that dawning, the horrific but cathartic clarity that covered her face with a sudden strangeness. "Uh, Spike is me. Pretty much all me."

"Maybe I should say… you're not William."

"You've never met William," he spat, now having an inkling of where this was heading.

"You're a demon wearing his face," she said with certainty.

Bloody Angelus. "So, luv, gonna start calling me Spikelus now?" he said with a bitter edge. "You saying that those two years of me pining and weeping like a lovesick fool count for nothing? That I only became… me, for the first time in a hundred a twenty some years, when I got my soul? And with that soul, my crimes before, my _worst_, aren't still attached to yours truly?"

"When are you gonna quit asking stupid questions?" she said. "Soul and soulless, pretty self-explanatory." Now she stood and moved towards him, in threat rather than peace.

He got up too, coat sweeping around him. "Then Angel's bloody stupid for feeling guilt over another person's crimes," he said. "Chip's long gone, I should be killing you right about now, right?"

"You're not stupid. You'll never defeat us."

The use of '_us_' gave him hope, strength. She wasn't herself. She was the bloody collective. But the wounds kept on aching. "Can you at least believe… think… remember…" he said slowly, unsure of what answer he was looking for, "that I love you?"

"No, you don't."

_Thank you. _He fled.

The woman had a gun out.

Lilah put down the spell book. "That's not very peace-happy," she said.

"Lilah." Her voice was cracked, thin like a cobweb. "You're dead."

Lilah's eyes widened ever so slightly. She got up and _looked_ at the woman. "Winifred Burkle," she finally said, disbelieving. "They say you're dead."

"Your precious Partners? Or the coffee queen?"

The gun was still out. "One shot and we're both gone," Lilah said warningly, glancing in the direction of the door. "This place isn't nearly as isolated as you think."

Dear, dead Fred put the gun away. She moved out of the dark and into the dim. Now Lilah could see her clumpy, tangled hair; bone dry and bone pale skin; and wide, wild eyes. She was that girl from the cave once more, but she never waited for the handsome man. She never waited for anything at all.

"Do you still cry, without her? When the bullet tore through her body and hit glass, did you weep or rejoice?" Lilah said, honestly curious. "You let chance decide your choice, then and there. You relinquished your own will. Your own thought. You gave up."

"No choice, not when no one else has any. Can't choose anything else. Cake and all." Fred crept towards her. "Got biscuits, though."

Lilah rolled her eyes. "And you sound about as nutty as a newly souled vamp. Joke's on me for thinking little Fred might be any help at all."

She took a cursory glance at the seeing orb, then a second, more alarmed look as she realised it was entirely black and cracked right down the centre like a crooked, cat's eye pupil. Abruptly it fell to the ground and rolled away.

She had a bad feeling about this. Hopefully, Spike had not been dusted.

"You can't choose," Fred said. "You're dead. You're just following orders. The world's black like that."

"That's right," Lilah agreed distractedly. "Just following orders." Fred was beneath her notice. A survivor, yes, but not a fighter. Someone's whose head was stuffed full of clouds and vague notions of goodness, but pure survivor at the end of it.

"Let's go get biscuits," Fred said, and vanished into the backroom.

Be that as it may, she really should keep an eye on Fred. Too much of a loose cannon. The crazy ones always were. So Lilah followed her swiftly, into the backroom and down the trapdoor stairs, into the dank basement. Fred flicked on the lights.

The walls were crammed with words. On one side, the usual markings of time, lines crisscrossing in a count of days. But mostly, there were tangents of nonsense words like the cracked glass side of Lewis Carroll, and obfuscating numbers and symbols that reminded Lilah that Fred still housed a formidable number-crunching machine of a mind.

That would be next to worthless in this game. No, the real worth in Fred was her immunity to Jasmine. She needed all the players she could get, as distasteful as working with this madwoman was to her. She wasn't quite sure if she would prefer mousy, sunshine Fred to this shattered mind.

But first things first, she should get a move on and quit loitering around. Find another plan, or at least find Spike. Judging from the blackened seeing orb, Jasmine knew that his soul was gone. Spike was either dusted or had managed to escape—unlikely, but the vampire had a way of doing the statistically improbable, even (perhaps especially) while soulless. And if Buffy Summers had one charitable bone in her body, had retained even a single inch of that soul complex, she would be seeking out the Orb of Thesulah. More specifically, Lilah's Orb of Thesulah. So there was at least one way that sitting around could spell victory, if Jasmine came to her instead.

Then Lilah paused in her thoughts, and glanced at Fred. No. This girl, not Jasmine nor Spike nor Buffy, was the one to help her. She needed to stop Jasmine with something bigger, correct? All she needed was a body, and the immune Fred had so helpfully presented herself as the perfect vessel.

So Lilah said, "Do you want to save the world?"

13-year-old Fang Long-Shi sees him and says in _her_ voice, "I see you. We see you." Long Shi drops his schoolbag and violin case, and stretches out his hands.

Sally McAllister, gripping her red handbag tightly with one hand, echoes, "We see you." She throws herself forward as he runs past. "So easy to see."

"We feel you. You're a disease." Raoul Rothworth Wolfe Sr., an old man recently cured from a previously incurable cancerous tumour in his brain, runs to him with steely eyes. "So easy to catch."

The disease retorts, "Not quite so easy, am I? You haven't got me yet!"

"You have demonic speed," Emma O'Shea says, "but you still cannot hope to outrun our legion of love." She will have the fortune of being Jasmine's next meal, leaving behind an ecstatic fiancé and two-month-old baby girl.

Kitty Kat, 39 years of age—

—Mattis Achtenberg, huffing and puffing, lunges to—

—out springs Avery Willis Hattensohn, wide eyed—

—"We see you! We see you!" cries Hunter Armando, drawing something out from under his brown leather coat—

We move as one against the disease; we _are _one, cells upon cells fusing without touching, fusing into a single, wonderful consciousness. We are one in love and peace, seeking to envelope the disease in mercy. We are one, in blessed unity, blissful unity—

Mouths gaping, frothing, screaming; hands grabbing and rough, forceful; faces ugly with puce and zealousness; tens of sweaty, mindless people bound together in an eerie conglomeration of souls.

Spike nearly faltered in his step when he took in the mass of people surrounding him (even the roofs had rows of people marshalled on the edge like some organised suicide or, less disturbingly, well-coordinated snipers), but he forced himself to continue zigzagging between the mob. But then, they weren't exactly a mob; they were organised to a military standard, yet flexible enough to respond to every change within the second. They were appendages, limbs; not simply bodyguard but _body_ of Jasmine.

It was bloody creepy. And persistently annoying.

The flood kept on coming, and his escapes were narrower and narrower. The hands that missed then brushed now seized. He'd gotten out of his share of tight spots even with an injured Dru in tow, but this was starting to resemble Prague.

Then one of the pairs of hands that seized him managed to maintain their grip, and they pulled him away. The sea was over him, currents around, chaos. He didn't know which way was up.

It all happened within a split second, and he found himself in an empty room. He could still hear the people out in the streets.

Magic was his best guess, but that train of thought was quickly derailed by the sight of his rescuer. "Angel!" he said, not bothering to keep his voice down. Perhaps not his rescuer, then. He shifted into a more battle-ready stance.

"You sure?"

Well, his face was half-hidden in shadow (or was that half-seen in the light?), but that voice was unmistakeable. And that _grin_. "A-Angelus?" he said, disbelieving. "Impossible."

Angelus moved from the shadow, stretching his arms outward in a welcoming gesture. "And yet, here I stand. I did save your neck, Spikey."

Spike looked at him warily, unsure of this new development. "Not much of a step up from where I was before," he said.

Angelus raised an eyebrow. "Really. Well then, I suppose I could just toss you back out there…"

Spike swallowed and immediately regretted the action as Angelus' eyes followed the movement. _Keep the tells down. _He had grown out of practice in the art of dealing with Angelus.

"Hey," Angelus said, laughing, "I get it. Your little brain needs time to think. I mean, you just got your good ol' soulless, _corporeal_ self back, had a talk with Little Miss Buffoon, chased to near extinction by the Borg Collective—"

_He heard me talking with Buffy? That can't be good._ "Yeah, knew all that, no need for the replay." Then he added, "'Cept for the revelation that Angel actually saw _Star Trek_."

"Nah, saw it after Buff boffed the soul outta me."

Spike took care not to react. He knew Angelus was watching closely—hell, Angelus was _always_ watching closely. "What's the story?" he said shortly.

"You know Buffy, can't keep her hands to herself."

Spike took care not to react. The soul _had_ taught him some restraint after all. But he found himself with a fist in the wall as Angelus anticipated his punch and swiftly stepped aside.

Angelus chuckled. "Take it easy, boy!" His eyes glinted dangerously. "No, I got my perfect happiness elsewhere. Could've predicted it, actually. A utopia can't be a utopia without perfect happiness."

As distractions went, that was rather interesting. "You mean…"

"When Jasmine's utopia was complete, when the world was one with… puppies and rainbows, _I_ got out. 'Course, I didn't exactly advertise it."

"No one noticed?" Spike said, incredulous. "Aren't they all a… hive mind thing?"

"Yet here I am. They just didn't notice, the idiots." Angelus smirked. "It's about time something interesting happened, though I never figured it would be you. Like old times, right?"

Old times. Well, they _were_ both soulless and hated each other's guts, but that was where the similarities ended. Spike had changed. _Angelus_ had changed; caged and released for a century plus had a different Angelus emerge from Angel's shell. More vengeful, and more… desperate. He knew restriction intimately, the unwanted cousin to restraint. He was less languid now—and more dangerous.

"…Guess we're stickin' together. Bloody hell." Spike sighed. "You already know someone took my soul, so I s'pose first thing's that I take you to my leader." If they could make it out undetected. If he could even find Lilah.

"Well, well. Guess it's time to save the world."

"Bloody hell."

Two soulless beings do not make a right. No, they barrel straight on.

There was nothing stupid about them, of course, and Spike was the rash one. But Angelus had been caged for too long in his own skin, and he was eager for blood. Might as well go all out, get Enemy Number One over Willy (as always).

It was ridiculous to think that an ordinary mob, no matter how organised or large, could overwhelm two unrestrained, bloodthirsty, experienced vampires. Half the Scourge of Europe! (_The _male _half_, Angelus thought, then added to himself, _the non-crazy half._)

It was a massacre. A good old massacre. Wonderful. Delicious. The kills were not in the least artistic. They were gluttony. Sometimes, it was good to let loose.

Spike was always excessive in that regard, of course. He never realised that restraint could produce the most satisfaction, and that with restraint came control. And he never realised the value of control. That didn't concern Angelus, however; not anymore.

Angelus was pleased to see the demon back in the fore in Spike, pleased to see the blood drenched upon his frame, pleased to see that feral grin, the grin he'd once grown to hate, plastered on his sharp face. Most of all, he was pleased to know that Buffy would see him in this state through the eyes of the other meat puppets.

Though Spike's _love_, sickening and amusing all at once, for Buff had remained, that did not necessarily mean it had not changed. Spike and his obsession with Slayers finally come to fruit.

_Now_ Angelus found the situation gut-wrenchingly hilarious.

"Now _that_ was fun!" Spike said, grinning madly. "Old times weren't so bad, eh?" He took a long slurp from a thick neck.

He always ate messily. The blood was spurting _everywhere_, a veritable fountain of gore. Angelus ate well and drank deep, but he'd never been a barbarian about it. Messy blood was reserved for, as Spike called it, back-to-the-wall fighting.

They drank there for an indeterminate amount of time, restoring their strength and, well, indulging.

"Now this accomplice of yours…" Angelus said between necks.

Spike threw a body aside. "Lilah Morgan."

Angelus laughed uproariously as it all clicked together. "The Partners got the champions after all!"

Spike, of course, didn't have the slightest clue what he was talking about and continued gorging himself.

"…Where are we meeting her?" Angelus didn't like feeling dependent on Spike for the information. After a moment, he realised that he really wasn't dependent and Spike was, as usual, entirely unprepared. "You don't _know_ where your accomplice is?" he demanded, bodies forgotten.

"Never said that!"

Angelus waited.

"But, uh, in a manner of speakin'… Strictly speaking… No."

"No," Angelus repeated, feeling the world press down on him. He grabbed Spike by the neck. "Old times, eh?" he snarled and pushed Spike against a sticky wall with a single arm. "How could I forget?" Then he released him as abruptly as he'd seized him.

Spike glared at him, but didn't return even a punch. Surprising. "There's not time to be fighting now. Like I said, I dunno where she is. But I'm sure our man-eating princess does."

That… wasn't such a bad idea, actually. "Hm." Somewhere along the way, Spikey _had_ picked up a little self-restraint. The soul? Nah. More like the chip he'd heard about. Conditioning was quite a powerful tool, he knew. Strange, it must've dropped out when he was de-ghosted or he wouldn't have been able to beat the crowd dead.

"Gramps!" Spike snapped his fingers right in Angelus' face. "Let's go. Follow the trail of crumbs."

Angelus beat his hand away. More than the self-restraint, Spike _had_ changed. He was more focused, more measured, more sober. More—mature.

Grown up, had he? But the dead couldn't change, much less without a soul. The core of him, Angelus knew, was the same sickening brand. "Think lover Buffy will be there?" he said.

Spike stiffened and stopped dead in his tracks. Angelus walked on past him.

Did she want to die? Could she bear to die?

_Save the world. _The phrase had shaken her to clarity (_remember those markings down under ground, your formulae and quotes and madness that all spell _useless_! You were a hero for a time, but you couldn't save them when it counted._), and the _question_…

"Your solution to saving the world is destroying it!"

"Desperate times," Lilah said. "Better than no solution at all, correct?" She looked pointedly at Fred.

Fred, wide-eyed, shook her head frenetically. She couldn't think, she was so out of practice. The sarcophagus seemed like maddest idea she'd ever heard, and yet Lilah seemed perfectly composed. She spoke as she thought, the babble of a brook, the chatter of teeth. Finally, at some point, her mind clicked, gears meeting in perfect alignment and then grinding along like an old, long-unused train screeching to a start.

"So many options!" The ideas danced before her, that wonderful surge of _thoughts_ running through her. "Blood, souls, magic, dimensions." Her eyes flashed as her thoughts took another turn, the glee of clarity sinking into analysis. "But you must know all that already. Your _bosses_ would know that already, so why the coffin?"

"_Now_ she decides on sanity," Lilah muttered. "So I have to actually convince you now? Damn, I was banking on a reservoir of guilt from sweet Fred."

Fred chose not to list her considerable credentials certifying her as most definitely not Sweet, Little Fred. Why waste breath on Lilah Morgan? Instead, she turned and scanned the shop with fresh eyes and mind, a renewed sense of urgency.

"Great, she's gone blank again. Hello? Fred? We're on a schedule!" Lilah said, voice clipped. "Ready to _save the world _yet?"

Didn't Lilah know time didn't matter anymore? Now, more than ever, it was endless. And unpunctuated. And was still. She remembered the picture she drew of a fractured, frozen clock, stuck to the wall and stuck in time. Time kept it, not the other way round. Tick tock. Tock.

Lilah was still talking.

To save herself from listening to her voice for a second longer, Fred said, "I will. Not with you."

This seemed to temporarily stymie Lilah. Fred didn't know how her response was at all unpredictable—setting aside the whole evil-Lilah-plans-to-destroy-the-world, she wasn't exactly keen on her on a personal level. Besides, she was a survivor and Lilah was dead.

"Just to clarify, you know I'm not _actually_ destroying the world?" Lilah said. She sounded like she was talking to a particularly slow child.

Boom, the world breaking apart, shards suspended in empty space like a child's mobile. The shards keep moving away from each other, expanding, drifting with direction. Fred giggled. "I don't know about you but trading in Jasmine for a people-subjugating Old One doesn't sound like a great idea."

"Oh, and a people-eating goddess is better? At least the Old One would be up front about it."

"Oh yes, very upfront with the carnage and the gore and the torture." But there was something strange about this whole thing. Fred knew Lilah wasn't stupid. Setting aside the Partners' orders, why would she arrange for the Old One?

"We're in an apocalypse," Lilah tried a different tack, "so let's just… bury the hatchet, burn the bridges, and get on with it."

Burn the bridges? That merited something scathing. But then— "Do you hear that?" Her body stiffened, nerves on high alert. The sound… of something enormous coming their way. Fred made a lightning movement to the backroom, only to be caught by someone strong.

"No use, they know you're here." That voice… Angel with an edge.

"Angel?" She waited for him to release her, but when he made no move to do so, she felt a hysterical laugh bubbling up.

"Probably know we're here too," came another voice. A blond man emerged from the shadows, casting a wary look at the door, then to Lilah: "'Lo. We meet again."

"Took you long enough, Spike," Lilah said, her usual impatience and derision plain in her tone.

Spike? Spike, William the Bloody? The laugh tore through her, a true, full-blown hyena cackle. Everyone jumped and turned to her. "S-S-Spike, Angelus—ha!—and Lilah Morgan—ha ha ha! _That's _the dream team? _This_ is the resistance?" She doubled up in laughter as Angelus released her. "All the good ones have been brainwashed and we're left with the dregs! Down, down down… Fighting without conscience, fighting in the name of evil and selfishness, fighting—"

"Just like you, for survival," Angelus cut across in a rather neutral tone.

Far from sobering, her laughter only grew more violent.

Then the door was thrown open by the crowd (immediately her eyes sought out Wesley or Gunn or Lorne, but the light _hurt_), who flooded in with angry looks. The sarcophagus clattered to the floor in the commotion. Fred glanced at it with the acute awareness that she was the only free person with a soul. Lilah wouldn't hesitate to infect one of the masses with it, but Fred couldn't allow that. She still had a remnant of good sense—or good conscience to retain.

A group of women—a squadron of Slayers, she realised—entered next, and walking majestically behind them was Jasmine.

It hurt to see her, the pang of what was lost still echoing in her chest. For a moment, she was again lost in that dark cellar with the cave drawings marking the boundaries, keeping her from drifting. And the one wall with scratches of time. (That was before she believed in the frozen clock.)

"Knock knock," said Buffy.

There was no compassion in her eyes. No spark, no uncertainty, no surprise or disapproval or even disappointment. It was under that look that he was now pinned down, as surely as the rays of light that had secured him in the Hellmouth in what seemed like a long time ago. Worst of all, he was familiar with that expression and so he could not blame it on Jasmine's control.

He could only remember the thick, delicious blood sliding down his throat, and the bodies jerking beneath his fangs. Frolicking among the dead with _Angelus_, of all people!

Like a true defender of the people, she held the Scythe in her hands and cool justice in her eyes.

Jasmine waved at the civilians to stand back. "The shop is small and full of unexpected objects. It would not do to get anyone unnecessarily hurt." Then she turned to the Slayers. "Buffy, Carina, Alexis, Wendy. You may slay the demons. Darren," a warlock, no doubt, "may banish the ghost." It seemed she did not know Lilah, though a ghost, was corporeal, or else she probably would have set the Slayers on her. Spike was sceptical of the warlock's effectiveness; Lilah had not been banished before, held by contract, and she probably wouldn't be now. Indeed, she wasn't looking all that worried. Spike took that to be a comfort. She would be free to use the sarcophagus, whatever power it contained, as planned. "Wesley, Charles. I'm sure you'd like to take care of Fred." Two unfamiliar men stepped out from the crowd, exchanging grim looks.

Looked like a brawl was about to break out. Spike assessed the fighters. The Slayers (he tried not to think of Buffy) would be a challenge for their sheer strength; he wasn't quite sure of their actual skill, though. The two men seemed muscular enough, but they were only human. If he wanted to help the girl (Fred, was it?), the girl who had somehow escaped Jasmine's control, he could take them out easily first.

The look still pinned him down. He couldn't move or fight or _kill _even if he wanted to. At the moment, the only thing he really wanted to do was, as he had felt countless times before, to turn back the clock and not screw things up so royally. The problem was this: the nightmare that was now seemed set to continue even after Jasmine was defeated. Because he knew when it was all over, Buffy would still look at him with those eyes and _he would deserve it. _He felt that horribly familiar sinking feeling deep in his gut like the echoes of a soul. Soul without a soul—it was really only his gut and heart.

"Angelus," Glasses said warily. "How could this be?"

"I kinda want to take him out too," Baldie said.

"Oh dear," Angelus said. Spike was surprised it took him this long to finally break the silence that had fallen upon Team Free World since Jasmine's arrival. "Decisions, decisions. Me or the whore?"

Spike glanced at the girl Fred. Her only reaction was lifting her eyebrows very slightly.

Angelus, on the other hand, wasn't paying any attention to her at all. He looked solely at Baldie. "You know, Gunn, you're hopelessly human. You know what drives you? Vengeance. Hate. Anger. I could go on and on about this, talk about your vengeance kink eclipsing your future and how it feeds into your anger in other things, other _people_, _every_ person who ever walked out on poor little Gunn, unwanted in the hood and scrabbling with all his might to etch out his own place. His _insignificant_ place; you never did save Alonna. Never really protected her. I could talk about how this need to protect is just an excuse to save yourself from your own anger, and when you tried to protect Fred, protect her so-called lily-white innocence, you were promptly discarded. Dark? She wants dark? The side you work so hard to keep down, day after day working for a killer, the same breed that killed your sister, the side that still thirsts for revenge, the side that _hates_ Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, the side that hates Fred too, the side that _killed_ a man to save her, she who never wanted to be saved, the side that is the deepest part of you and inextinguishable and _indistinguishable_ from the rest of you—its rejection is your downfall, and its acceptance shows you've already fallen."

His voice always did have that mesmerizing quality, a ring of dark truth to his tone. "I could say all that, and more. And I could give you a creative choice between Fred and your conscience. An experiment, one might say. I could even give you a chance for vengeance. But none of this means anything, because it doesn't mean anything to you."

"I believe," Spike drawled, "this is Angelus' longwinded way of explaining why he's on our side. World's bloody boring when there's no one to torment."

"I wouldn't say _no one_," Angelus said, raising an eyebrow at Spike. Under his tone was a note of annoyance, probably from being cut off. Drama king.

"You're mad," one of the Slayers said, and that was that. The fight began.

Buffy went straight for him, of course, with that air-cutting Scythe. Official weapon of the Slayer, which was not great news for a vampire. He found no words to banter with or for any excuse; he only just found it in himself to evade her attacks. He was rusty, but so was she. And he was full of blood.

She talked, though. Rather, spat out a single demand. "Show it, then. Show your face."

It didn't take long for his demon mien to emerge. "Does that make it easier for you?" he said, but it was all bravado. He knew he was lost to her already, and maybe even lost to himself.

She wasn't Buffy. But she fought like her. For a moment, he felt like he was sparring with her again in the basement of the overcrowded Summers' home, but the feeling quickly passed when she nicked his cheek. A long, thin line of blood seeped from the cut.

He needed a weapon. No doubt the shop had an array of weapons for the taking, but it wasn't like he could take his time cataloguing each item. Another time, he might have appealed to her sense of fair play—_echoing again, do we really need weapons for this?_ And even if he had a weapon, with him so bent on only defending himself, he would fall still to her vicious blows.

He kicked out at one of the mountains and the objects crashed to the ground in a landslide, temporarily slowing her down. He took the opportunity to seize something from the pile, anything that remotely resembled a weapon, something with enough reach to fight on equal ground with the Scythe.

He ended up with an actual fire axe. It was like the Scythe's cute little cousin.

Well. He took what he could reap.

She laughed at it. It was a beautiful sound, and he was annoyed at its beauty. She was brainwashed! Happy flower zombie! Shouldn't she sound at least a little different? (Either way, he could not fight her for the life of him. He had always been outmatched.)

To distract himself, he shouted, "Lilah! Do something!" He didn't have the luxury of checking what exactly she was doing. And he never did sniff out her reasons or humanity. There were so little of the two here, in anything. Maybe only in that Fred.

He couldn't think of himself having humanity anymore, as much as he had with the soul. There _was_ a difference. Not two separate entities as Buffy thought—but how he wished that were true now! He might be excused for his actions—but a difference nonetheless, that he was feeling all too well. A gap, a chasm, a _hole_ in himself that made him a monster.

And here he thought self-loathing was reserved for souls.

He faltered. Buffy struck him with one hard blow of the Scythe, tearing deep into his stomach, and he fell to the ground. She stood before him like a blinding angel, Scythe raised high.

In a split-second, Spike had no doubt she would bring it down on him without mercy.

Then Fred crashed into her and Spike jumped to his feet, and it was a whole lot of chaos with Glasses following after and two of the other Slayers dead by Angelus' hand, and everyone's battles getting mixed up in one big—

Someone yanked him back. "This coffin, throw it at Jasmine," came a low, rough order. Lilah's eyes were angry, vicious—

In them he saw her humanity, and though he did not understand it, the sight of it roused him more quickly than the instruction itself. In that moment, that crucial moment, he trusted her blindly.

He took up the sarcophagus, shaved smooth and cool but heavier than he expected, and threw it with blinding speed and strength at Jasmine.

Jasmine's eyes flashed for a second in awareness—

He expected the coffin to smash into her in the next second, but then a black shape threw itself in the line of fire. A moment later he realised it was Buffy, who batted the casket to the ground in a heavy thud.

He did not know what the sarcophagus did, only that it contained, in some way or form, an Old One, and that it was dangerous. He realised instantly that what was meant for Jasmine, Enemy No. 1 for anyone with a spine to spare, had instead been absorbed by Buffy. And that he had thrown it.

Jasmine and her body of humans froze. The white hats, dubious as the name was, did the same.

Spike felt his stolen blood freeze as well.

Buffy coughed.


End file.
